Your Right to Know

When state Auditor Dave Yost says he has the authority to fully inspect JobsOhio’s finances, he’s referring in part to a decision handed down 13 years ago by a state appeals court.

Among the judges responsible for the ruling: William G. Batchelder, now the Republican Ohio House speaker who’s bashing Yost for trying to examine both the public and private money flowing into the privatized development agency.

In a 2000 case before Ohio’s 9th District Court of Appeals, Batchelder and two other judges unanimously ruled that then-Auditor Jim Petro had the authority under state law to issue subpoenas to a private entity receiving money from a public agency.

“Otherwise, an underhanded public official could easily establish a web of conduits and launder public money without apprehension,” the court found. “In the interest of good government and maintaining the public trust, the state auditor must be able to follow the money trail.”

But now that Yost has subpoenaed all of JobsOhio’s financial records, Batchelder, Republican Gov. John Kasich and GOP Senate President Keith Faber say Yost is entitled to audit only JobsOhio’s public dollars. And they insist that Ohio law already limits the scope of Yost’s authority.

A spokesman for Batchelder said yesterday that the dispute between Yost and Kasich is different from the case from 13 years ago.

That case involved Petro’s effort as part of an audit of Summit County to subpoena records from a private entity that received public dollars. Yost is trying to subpoena records from a private entity — JobsOhio — that is the target of the audit, said Michael Dittoe, Batchelder’s spokesman. “He’s trying to audit a private entity.”

As part of a joint statement yesterday with Batchelder, Faber said, “We simply don’t share the view that a government official can force a private entity to disclose private financial records.”

Faber also continued the weeklong threat from top Republicans of inserting language into legislation “clarifying” the auditor’s authority to audit JobsOhio. Faber spokesman John McClelland said later that no such amendment has been added yet.

“But there are still a lot of negotiations going, and I wouldn’t close the door on anything yet,” McClelland said.

Fred Gittes, a Columbus lawyer who has been involved in many open-government cases, said Ohio law gives the auditor “absolute, clear, unequivocal, express authority to audit all of the financial records of JobsOhio.”

“It clearly states that the auditor can also audit private institutions, particularly when public finances are involved,” said Gittes, who called the comments by Kasich, Batchelder and Faber “reckless.”

“JobsOhio is getting millions at the taxpayers’ expense, and we aren’t even going to check to see if JobsOhio, which is a private entity, is a safe investment? It’s absurd,” Gittes said. In the 2000 court case, Batchelder agreed that Ohio law has “no ambiguity” about the auditor’s “discretionary authority to audit those private entities receiving public monies.” The party fighting an auditor’s subpoena has the burden to prove it should not be subject to audit, the judges ruled.According to a private audit of JobsOhio conducted by KPMG and released by the Kasich administration last week, JobsOhio and its subsidiary received $6.9 million in private donations and at least $5.3 million in state grants.

As part of months-long negotiations between Yost’s and Kasich’s top staff members, Yost put forth an offer in which the law would be changed so his office could do the audit eventually conducted by KPMG, and the results of the audit would not become public record for five years.

“That was a trial balloon the auditor sent as a chance to maybe bring them to the table to compromise,” said Carrie Bartunek, a spokeswoman for Yost. “Originally, they did not question the auditor’s authority. Their concern was that a public release of an audit would harm their negotiations with businesses.

“This was not (Yost’s) first choice; he’s a big supporter of the public’s right to information. It was just a way to move negotiations forward, and they rejected the offer.”Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said “that idea was completely unacceptable.”“The General Assembly mandated that JobsOhio be audited annually by a private accounting firm, in keeping with its status as a private corporation,” Nichols said. “The auditor has repeatedly sought to change that.”

Meanwhile, state Rep. Chris Redfern placed a hold on money requests from the state’s Development Services Agency to the Controlling Board, a bipartisan spending panel that meets Monday. The Ohio Democratic Party chairman cited Kasich’s refusal to comply with Yost’s JobsOhio subpoena and the fact that at least $6.5 million in grants to JobsOhio’s subsidiary did not go through the Controlling Board.